


Harley's Favourite Super Hero

by autumn_hare



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: (tm), Awkward Flirting, First Meetings, Fluff, He is failing, It Was Meant To Be, M/M, its gross, take it from me, the shoulder touch, they also like gazing into each others eyes, tony is attempting to deal with his science sons, turns out they both love fucking with him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 22:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18837847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumn_hare/pseuds/autumn_hare
Summary: When Tony introduces his two s̶o̶n̶s̶ prodigies, he expects any number of things - a heated debate, a fist fight, hell an explosion. but what Tony did not expect, is this.





	Harley's Favourite Super Hero

**Author's Note:**

> If you would prefer, there is in fact a podfic version of this fic! There will be a link in the 'inspires works' section at the bottom
> 
> xx

“So when is Patrick coming over?”

 

“Peter.”

 

“Right, Peter, when’s he coming?” Harley ran a distracted hand across his forehead, pushing his floppy hair out of the way. Tony would casually neglect to tell him about the grease stain it had left. 

 

“He should be here in an hour, but in Peter times that means he’ll be here in twenty minutes,” Tony paused, across the shop from Harley, something else greasy and metallic beneath his hands. Shop time was bonding time between Harley and Tony, what wasn’t to love about getting lost in the scent of wet metal and the clank of tools on a workbench? Tony continued, “He’s… eager.” 

 

“Oh come on,” Harley mocked, “you know there’s only room for one ‘keener’ in this family,” Harley heard Tony let out a laugh, feeling a grin creep on his face. Good, keep everything light. Harley wasn’t about to admit to Tony, how off he felt about meeting his replacement.  _ He’s not a replacement, Harley,  _ Tony had insisted when Harley had made a joke about it earlier. No, course he wasn’t, Tony. Course he wasn’t. Harley knew he had been gone for too long this time. Before… he had been able to come every year, of not multiple times in one… but that was before everything had gotten tough. Time with Tony had to be savoured, he could feel the possibility of having him as a true mentor slowly slipping out of his fingers. But maybe this, the fact that he was in New York for good, could change things. 

 

_ “Mr. Parker is on his way to the laboratory, would you like me to redirect him to the workshop?”  _

 

“No thanks, Fri, we can just head up there,” Harley watched as Tony pushed his goggles up his face and wrung his hands with a cloth. 

 

“Wow, rude, okay, and here I thought I was the guest,” Harley laughed, setting his tools down and unthinkingly wiping his hands on the front of his pants. 

 

“Oh hush it, Keener,” Tony stood up, looking around for his coffee cup. 

 

“Did you just tell me to  _ hush it?  _ Jesus Tony, how long was I gone, you went and got old on me!” they moved to walk out together, falling into an easy step. Tony barked a laugh out at Harley’s words. He put an around Harley and gave him a brief squeeze. 

 

“Too long, kid.” 

 

~

 

Tony could see Peter as they rounded the corner of the lab, the glass windows giving them a clear view of what Tony recognized to be Peter stress-programming.

 

Of course he had assumed introducing Harley and Peter would be tricky, they were such different parts of his life, both so important to him, but Tony knew what teenage boys were like. So yeah, it was bound to be tricky. But he hadn’t really predicted just how tricky it would be. As well as Harley thought he hid it, and as much as Peter liked to believe Tony didn’t know his ticks, Tony could tell both boys were racked with anxiety about the whole thing. 

 

Remind him again how he had managed to (basically) adopt not one, but  _ two,  _ raggamuffin stress-monsters? 

 

“Peter!” he called over the music, watching Peter frantically scramble to turn off whatever pop garbage was blasting in the lab. Harley was uncharacteristically quiet behind him. Tick that box on the ‘are my genius children anxious’ checklist. If Peter or Harley went quiet? End of the world. 

 

Tony watched Peter try to clean up his papers in a whirlwind, snippets of equations and code spread everywhere like the debris of a crash. He wondered in the back of his head whether picked these things up from Tony, or if they were just naturally so similar. Come to think of it, Harley and him were quite similar too. Maybe it came with the brain. 

 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter rushed to his feet. The last severed notes of a song ringing in the sudden silence of the room. 

 

He heard Harley chuckle out a quiet laugh behind him, alongside a barely audible  _ ‘Mr. Stark.’ _

 

Tony watched Peter’s eyes shoot to Harley then, his face immediately turning scarlet. Super hearing, shit, he should have warned Harls about that one. 

 

“Er, uhm,” Peter floundered, his eyes locked on Harley. This was Tony’s cue.

 

“Harley, this is Peter, Peter, this is -” 

 

“Harley,” he finished for himself, his hand coming to rest on Peters shoulder. 

 

Tony had barely noticed Harley striding forward - perhaps he just hadn’t registered it out of shock. But now he watched, clear as day in vivid technicolour, Harley give Peter a look he knew so well, but had never thought of on  _ Harley.   _ Peter was clearly frozen, his eyes trained up on Harley. (Harley was taller than Tony now, and that meant he was taller than Peter too. Clearly, seventeen was treating Harley well)

 

Tony zoned in on the hand on Peter’s delicate shoulder just in time to hear the telltale: 

 

_ “Hey.”  _

 

Tony was about to fucking  _ lose it.  _

 

But you know what really tipped him off the edge? 

 

It was the quiet breathy way Peter said  _ “Hey,”  _ back. 

  
  


~

 

Tony really could have expected introducing them to go a hundred different ways. But somehow, in all his insurmountable genius, he could never have predicted this. 

 

He found himself sitting on one end of the couch, nursing a tonic he was pretending had gin in it, while he pointedly kept his eyes on the movie they were watching. 

 

Peter and Harley were sitting together at the other end, a constant stream of conversation between them, movie all but forgotten. 

 

He let out a quiet sigh, wondering how he managed to wind up in this situation. He had thought that they would have been amiable for him, friends at the very best. If he had even considered it, he would have thought them too different for whatever  _ this  _ was. Harley was all hardware, never comfortable without a tool in his hand or a car above him, his teen years bringing forward a brashness and roughness. He was all big laughs and bigger ideas. But Peter, Peter was all software. Always chewing his nails over the minutia of code, tinkering with formulas and excitedly babbling about pushing the limits of science. He was all bright eyes and soft sweaters, rushing out windows and doors alike to rescue the kitten  _ du jour.  _

 

It was then that Tony realized with a groan the stupidity of his own metaphor. Hardware and software, literally created to compliment each other. 

 

~

 

Peter was breathing heavy, his heart pounding out of his ribcage. In that moment, he was wonderfully grateful that he was the only one in the room with super hearing.  _ God,  _ if Harley and Mr. Stark could hear how worked up he was. Because jeez, when he imagined meeting Harley, Mr. Stark’s original prodigy, it sure didn’t go like this. He was expecting someone, older, someone jerkier, someone smarter than Peter. Well, actually, Harley appeared to be all of those things. But somehow Peter couldn’t bring himself to care. He wasn’t expecting Harley Keener to be  _ hot.  _ He wasn’t expecting Harley Keener to  _ hit on him.  _

 

He looked over at Harley, the animated way he talked so painfully  _ Mr. Stark  _ that that alone brought a smile to Peters face. Yeah, okay, he could get used to this guy. 

 

(And admittedly, if nothing else, it was completely worth it to see the look on Mr. Starks face) 

~

 

Harley’s eyes bugged out of his face. 

 

“Wait.  _ You’re Spider-Man?”  _  He sputtered out, looking at the small boy curled up by him on the couch. There was a pause, Peter nodded nervously. 

 

“Mr. Stark didn’t tell you?” His voice was timid. 

 

“Okay hold on hold on, as cool as it is that you’re a superpowered vigilante we  _ really  _ need to address  _ that _ ,” Harley was trying to stifle a laugh. 

 

“Huh?” Peter asked, tilting his head, “Address what?” 

 

Harley couldn’t keep his laugh in as he said it.

 

_ “Mr. Stark,”  _ he cackled out. 

 

“Hey now,” Tony said, turning to face the two of them for the first time in ages.

 

If he thought about it, Peter really was a win-win for Harley: embarrass Tony and chat up a cute boy, all in one, adorable, sweater clad package. 

 

Tony continued, “If you’re going to insist that I’ve adopted you both, at least play nice with your brother.” 

 

Harley immediately feigned a gag. 

 

“Ew, no, Tony don’t you  _ dare  _ bring the B-word into this room,” he pointed a finger at Tony, who simply smiled and turned back to look at the screen. 

 

“Uncool Mr. Stark,” Peter laughed out. Sending Harley into a thought process that sounded impossibly rushed in that teen sort of way, but who could blame him, he was fucking  _ whipped  _ for this guy and he had met him an hour ago. He internally groaned at the awful joke his mind had suggested - something about being caught in his web. 

 

Peter had Harley wrapped around one of his sticky little spider-fingers, how the hell had that happened? 

 

“I can’t believe my favourite superhero calls Tony ‘Mr. Stark’,” he laughed, wanting desperately to run his hands through Peter’s hair. Peter quirked up an eyebrow. 

 

“Spiderman? Really? I would have pegged you as an Iron Man kinda guy,” Peter prodded in his challenging sort of way, a sweet blush on his cheeks as he joked. 

 

Harley wanted to go back in time and rip the Iron Man posters off his old bedroom walls. 

 

Spiderman was officially his favourite Avenger, Iron Man  _ and  _ Tony Stark be damned. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [PODFIC - Harley's Favourite Super Hero](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834721) by [autumn_hare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumn_hare/pseuds/autumn_hare)




End file.
